The project

Although it is well-accepted that converting the pro-inflammatory immune environment within central nervous system (CNS) lesions into an anti-inflammatory and/or regeneration-inducing immune environment will be one of the key directions in future treatment of neuro-inflammatory diseases, this approach is currently limited due to the absence of clinically safe tools for direct delivery of immune-modulating therapeutics into CNS inflammatory lesions. By combining advanced molecular biology, cell biology, (transgenic) animal models, bioimaging, histological analyses and statistical modeling, we here aim to evaluate the effectiveness of interleukin (IL)13 mRNA gene therapy to modulate CNS inflammatory responses as an clinically applicable alternative for current preclinical viral and/or stem cell-based delivery methods for IL13 that were developed by our group as a potential novel treatment modality for advanced stage MS patients.